PLEASE NOTE: As you know, I'm going through a pretty painful medical issue, but nothing life-threatening, so no worries. But it's keeping me down and also very busy going from doctor to doctor, getting CTscans, blahblah. So, I won't be here much today. I should be back for the weekend, then off again most of Monday.

But this issue is one that MUST get more attention. Please call your Congress members and share this post.

It's called the U.S. Postal Service because it is a service, not a corporation. Who decided the Postal Service must be profitable? Do other government agencies, like the Defense Department and the Department of Education, have to turn a profit?

Benjamin Franklin was the first postmaster general, and the Post Office has effectively served the American people for 237 years. But now it is under attack because, gasp, it's losing money. No wonder: The Republicans in 2006 made postal workers pre-fund their retirement 75 years in advance, making it nearly impossible for the USPS to make a profit.

Let's be honest: Conservatives want to privatize the Postal Service, home to two of the nation's largest unions. If Congress insists that the USPS be profitable (and it shouldn't), then the solution is simple: Raise the price of stamps a few cents.

Arlen Grossman

Monterey

Well said.

Of course, the GOP would rather we Americans don't communicate with each other, because when we do, we discover more about their party.

Now to more fully understand what's going on, here are two excellent Ed Schultz segments. Last night's (the second video) included some great insights into how "Real America" will be affected:

Sarah Palin. She called it "Real America." Look at the 2012 election map. Look at all that red that's there. That's "Real America," isn't it? That's Republican territory, or what Republicans like to call Real America. That's where Republicans are elected year after year.

And it's the area that's going to be hit hardest by the restructuring of the post office.A restructuring crisis created by the very Republicans elected in Real America.

Now, while many Americans, 'ehhh you'll shrug off the postal service's decision to suspend Saturday service delivery,' the consequences, my friends, could be devastating. Not just that we're going to lose 22,500 jobs that are at stake, but the postal service has already started to close, or drastically reduce hours of operation at 13,000 rural offices across Real America.

Many rural communities that are Republican, that have less than reliable access to the Internet, depend on the post office to send mail to do business and are going to be faced with shorter hours at the post office, meaning business is going to get hurt.

It's going to be less competitive. Many people think that companies like FedEx and UPS, oh they'll just come in and fill the gaps. They are wrong. It's estimated that about 30% of FedEx ground shipments are actually delivered by who? The United States Postal Service.Why? Because it's cheaper for UPS and FedEx to make the postal service deliver to Real America.

You see, the post office is required by law to provide universal delivery, regardless of geography and regardless of whether or not they're going to make a profit. It's a big service for America. This is a rights issue. This is more not so much about convenience, this is about what you in Real America voted for: Tea Party America.

At the very end of that year, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006(PAEA). Under PAEA, USPS was forced to “prefund its future health care
benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in an astonishing ten-year time span” — meaning that it had to put aside billions of dollars to pay for the health benefits of employees it *hasn’t even hired yet*, something “that no other government or private corporationis required to do.”

The Postal service would be running a billion dollar surplus except for the fact that the GOP mandated in 2006 that the USPS fund the next 75 years of its pension plan in 10 years for the sole purpose of putting the USPS out of business. the USPS receives no funding from the US government.

Pelu Maad

Ohhhh...Issa and the guys are crony capitalist assholes. I feel so much better now.....

theoracle

If you noticed, I mentioned conservative Democrats in league with conservative Republicans as being responsible for some of the most nation crippling policies in recent memory, but it was GW Bush and a Republican-controlled Capitol Hill in a lame-duck session in late 2006 that attacked the U.S.P.S. (including fellow Republicans working at the U.S.P.S.) and it has been filibuster-crazy Senate Republicans and just plain crazy House Republicans who have blocked Democratic Party attempts to undo what crazy ideology-uber-alles Republicans did in 2006 to the U.S.P.S.. I'm not fooled, just like I wasn't fooled by all the lies Bush, Cheney and the neo-cons spouted before starting the war in Iraq in March 2003.

Or the leftwingnut apologists who lend a blind eye to Democratic politicians committing the same constitution destroying crimes as the Republicans. For example, the recent passage of the unconstitutional NDAA bill was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support.

As long as people like you blame ONLY the Republicans or ONLY the Democrats, then YOU TOO are part of the problem. It took a bipartisan Congress to vote for a bill designed to bankrupt the Post Office. Wake up and smell the fascism coming from the Democratic-Republican Party, Inc.

theoracle

Today's Republican Party is a "clear and present danger" to America, to the U.S. Postal Service, to women, to senior citizens, to family farmers, to children, to students, to military veterans, to workers, to minorities, but especially to the frail and ailing and struggling poor in our society.

Today's Republican Party views everyone who is not wealthy or an ideological conservative purist as being expendable, disposable, discardable, destroyable. This view is also held, though slightly more muted, by those in the corporate-controlled conservative branch of today's Democratic Party, members of which tend to vote alongside today's Republicans. When money talks, especially a whole lot of money, conservatives listen.

The U.S. Postal Service. Non-profit, Constitutionally-mandated federal service, nationwide. Postal union: men, women, white, minorities AND a third being U.S. military veterans (at least before today's Republicans forced layoffs/downsizing to being in late 2006 by passing legislation requiring the U.S. Postal Service to prefund 75 years of employee healthcare costs, but to be paid in 10 years). The Postal Service's Board of Governors in late 2006 could have begun addressing this looming Republican-caused budgetary shortfall at the U.S.P.S. by raising the first class stamp rate a few cents, but the Republican-packed Board of Governors instead chose the Forever Stamp and keeping stamp raters the same, further squeezing U.S.P.S. revenues, increasing yearly shortfalls...all part of the Republican plan to destroy the U.S.P.S..

And this Republican plan: privatize everything public (with only Republican-friendly private corporations and individuals benefiting), destroy FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society programs, deregulate corporate activities so huge, unfettered profits can be generated for Republican-friendly corporations and individuals, attack the income tax with the goal of replacing the income tax nationwide with a regressive Flat Tax (generating even more wealth for Republican-friendly corporations and individuals, the corporate elite) while at the same time calling for tax cuts, tax cuts, tax cuts and to-the-bone government spending cuts in Republican preparations for America becoming a right-wing-controlled Banana Republic, run by conservatives and only for conservatives. And relentlessly attacking labor unions, like the one for workers at the U.S. Postal Service, is all part of this nefarious and evil Republican Party plan. Wake up America!!!!!

Pelu Maad

The face of the urban Postal Service is "black". Could that possibly be influencing those trying to destroy it?

One assumption about the USPS is that it has
not been allowed to make a profit off the sales of their products That
could not be more wrong, because the organization is not in the business
of making a profit at all The sole intent of the US Postal Service is to provide universal mail service, nation wide to the public That's it
Other mail services are in the business of selling their products an
making a profit is part of their business an there is no limit on the
cost to the consumer because the CEO's in these private mail services
make millions in profits an bonuses, much of which is used to lobby
Congress members to trash USPS an force the trashing of the non profit
usps an force consumers to do business with them, instead, costing far
more All you need to do is compare prices an automatically you would
choose USPS This is correct It's called the US Postal Service for
the reason it is not a corporation It is a public service, not for
profit!

Sally

This makes me furious. The GOP hides behind the Constitution of the Heritage Foundation, planning daily more ways to make our lives shorter, harder, and poorer. I am so sick of the attack on women, the attacks on unions, and the attacks on our way of life. We need to vote the GOP OUT in 2014: all of the Congressmen, all of the Senators who are up for re-election, all of the Governors who put corporate tax breaks on the backs of their teachers (yes, Gov. Snyder, that's you.) If this PO situation doesn't motivate us to stand up and be counted, nothing will.

Article 1 (in part) Section 8
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and
Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general
Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be
uniform throughout the United States; To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

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